I decided tonight that I’m going to start potty training Ava tomorrow. She’s been showing readiness signs for awhile and I’ve made a few efforts, but I keep waiting for a perfect, uninterrupted stretch of time to potty train and I finally realized that’s never going to happen. So tomorrow we’re getting serious!

As it stands, my plan is to just put her on the potty every 30 minutes or so and have her try to go. The last time I tried potty-training her, I waited for her to tell me she had to go and she never did, so we’re going to try it this way instead. I think we’re going to reward her with gummy bears when she goes, so hopefully that will be a good motivation for her. We may do a sticker chart, too.

I have 4 pairs of cloth training pants and I’m not sure if that will be enough. I’ve never potty-trained before, so I have no idea. I can always buy more if I need to, though.

Anyway, wish us luck! As long as there isn’t any Colonix in the equation, we should be good (OK, that was stretching it a bit far LOL). As long as I survive, I’ll be posting an update on our first day of potty-training tomorrow!

Posted: June 29th, 2009 under Ava's Potty-Training Journey.
Comments: 4

Our kids are not old enough to go to the movies yet. Not even close.

This afternoon, we decided to try to take the kids to Transformers 2. Ava hasn’t been to a movie in the theater since she was less than a year old and Kelvin has never been to a movie. So we were cautiously optimistic. We thought Ava would be old enough to sit still and eat lots of popcorn and we thought Kelvin would be young enough to sit on my lap and eat his snacks. But it didn’t quite work out that way.

We got there in time to see the 3:00 movie, but it was completely full, so we had to wait for the 3:30. The kids used up all their good behavior waiting for the movie and by the time it started, Kelvin was fussy and Ava was trying to run away. I tried standing with Kelvin on the edge of the theater near the door, but Ava wanted to be by me, too, and she was really noisy. I ended up having to take them out in the hall before Shia LeBeouf even came on the screen.

Once we got out there, I was sitting there wondering how on earth I would keep them busy for another 2.5 hours. I was pretty sure going back to watch the movie was not going to be in the cards for us. In the end, I decided to just take the kids home and come back to get Chad when the movie was over. Ava was completely in agreement, luckily!

It took about 5 minutes to get them both out to the car and buckled in (we had to park really far away). I got in the driver’s seat only to realize I’d left my keys at home. I had to get the kids out and take them back into the theater and text Chad to ask for his keys (luckily he remembered to turn his phone on vibrate!).

Needless to say, after that disaster, we’ve decided to wait awhile before we ever attempt this again! I can just stay home and get just as much exercise on the treadmill instead of walking back and forth in the hot theater parking lot!

Posted: June 28th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 2

I’m so tired right now. Today was our friends’ wedding and I was honored to be one of their bridesmaids. It was definitely a full-day thing, though…we spent the morning helping with flower arrangements, the early afternoon getting ready, the late afternoon at the ceremony and the evening at the reception. It was so much fun and I’m so glad we got the opportunity to do this, but man am I wiped!!!

Remember the dress? Sarah said that she didn’t want the bridesmaids’ dresses to match, but it turned out the other bridesmaid (well, she was actually a grooms-maid) and I bought the same one! LOL It was a little late to do anything about it when we found out the night before the wedding, though! At least we had different shoes….neither of them were Dansko though…LOL

The kids did great with all the running around and craziness today. Ava had a blast playing with the other kids…and dancing with her skirt pulled up to her chin. Someone said they think she’ll have a career in show business! LOL Kelvin was a little fussy, but not too unmanageable. He was so tired by the end of the night, though….I was getting Ava ready to leave and Chad was holding Kelvin and rocking him back and forth and he was nodding off. Poor little guy!

Anyway, that’s all I can think of to write about. I’m going to go finish the movie I started during nap time and then head to bed….

Posted: June 27th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

To start off, this is *not* a sponsored post. This is a program that I use many times a day that I’ve had great results with.

A couple months ago, I wrote about a program called Swagbucks. It’s a search engine that rewards you for using it. You can easily download a toolbar to make it even more convenient to use. Then every few searches, you’ll be rewarded with swagbucks (usually 1-3). And be sure to keep reading, because right now you can earn 5 swagbucks just for signing up! The swagbucks build up and you can trade them in for gift cards or other prizes.

I’ve only been using it for a few months and I’ve gotten $30 in Amazon gift cards (in fact, the bath seat I bought Kelvin was completely free thanks to Swagbucks!)You can get gift cards for other places, too, of course…Target, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, and Victoria’s Secret to name a few.

You can also make extra swagbucks by referring friends. Whenever your friends earn swagbucks, you earn the same number they do, up to 100. If you sign up, please go through the links in this post!

Until Sunday, Swagbucks is offering my readers a swag bucks code to earn 5 swagbucks right off the bat, just for signing up! The code is: LORASCODE Just click here to go to the registration form. All you have to do is enter that code in the blue box that says SwagCode.

It’s so easy and you don’t have to do anything that you wouldn’t normally be doing. I highly recommend Swagbucks as a way to make a little extra spending money!

Posted: June 25th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none

Kelvin finally started scooting today! Here’s the first video of it. Try to ignore Ava constantly trying to grab stuff out of his hands….it never ends (anytime she sees something in his hands, she grabs it and I have to stop her).

Posted: June 23rd, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 2

I think our lives around here might settle down for just a little bit now. It’s been a chaotic month, but now we don’t have any more trips planned until the end of July. I’m looking forward to settling back into our routines and being able to blog more again. I really miss it when I don’t have time for it.

Last week, we were at the Aire-Master national conference in Kansas City (it was such a long drive…LOL!). I picked up a few things that will streamline things in the office, which will be nice. Basically, I learned that I don’t need to be doing some of the things I’m doing.

The kids were great at the conference. We brought two umbrella strollers so that we wouldn’t have to bring the big double stroller (we were taking my car and there’s no way it would have fit with the suitcase). I got little connector things to turn it into a double stroller, which came in handy part of the time. Ava had a blast pushing Kelvin up and down the halls in his stroller…and by the end of the conference, she was really good at it! She could push him all the way from the conference rooms, to the elevator and up to our room without running into walls or anything. I wish I would have gotten a video of it, but I really fell down on the job. In fact, I only got one picture during the entire thing and it’s the one here….Ava and one of the friends she made there.

After the conference, Chad’s parents came to our house for about a day. It was nice to show them some of the changes we’ve made and get soundly whupped playing Phooey on Your Neighbor. LOL

Sunday, of course was Father’s Day and today we tackled the grocery shopping. And now we have no plans until Friday! I can’t even being to tell you how nice that is!

Posted: June 22nd, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

Lately, Ava has started calling me “baby”. All day, it’s “Hi, Baby”, “No, Baby”, and “Oh Baby”. LOL At first, I didn’t know why she’d decided to call me that and then I realized that I call her Baby more than I’d realized. Apparently, she thinks it’s just a term of endearment. I think it’s cute, though.

I know I had something else to write about tonight, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t about nuphedra reviews, but there’s a link if you’re interested. LOL I guess this is what happens when your measly little 6 hours of sleep are interrupted 3-5 times every night….you can’t even remember what you were thinking about 5 minutes ago and you definitely can’t write a coherent or interesting blog post, even if you could remember!

Posted: June 13th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

We’re home and pretty much back into our normal routine! We all survived the trip back to Topeka, but Kelvin did not make it pleasant. And I finally got statements sent out yesterday…better late than never!

I just have to say how proud I am of Kelvin. We have co-slept with him since the day he was born and I had several people tell me that we wouldn’t be able to get him out of our bed until he was 5 and other ridiculous things like that. I didn’t give it a second thought because we co-slept with Ava too, and she was ready to sleep in her own bed when she was about 9 months.

For the last few weeks, I could tell that Kelvin was ready to start sleeping in his own bed. It was obvious he needed more space, and I was also concerned about him falling out of our bed because he rolls so much now. So the night we got home from WI, I asked Chad to set up the pack n play in our room next to the bed. I put Kelvin to sleep in there (he was perfect…no fussing or crying) and he slept through the night for the very first time EVER! The next night, we moved it into his room, and he hasn’t slept through the night again, but he’s been sleeping in there every night and taking all his naps in there, too. It was the most painless transition ever…no screaming and crying for hours, no battle of the wills. He’s made it so easy!

He can even put himself to sleep sometimes when he’s in there. That never would have happened in our bed, but if I put him in the pack n play after he’s nursed, I can leave the room for a couple minutes, come back, and he’ll be asleep with no fussing or crying! By the way, we use the pack n play because Ava’s still using the crib, converted into a toddler bed. We should have a new bed for her in the next couple months and then we’ll move Kelvin into the crib.

I’m just so proud of him. If he were older, it would be tempting to buy him one of these golf trophies or something. No, scratch that…that’s stupid. LOL

I’m also so happy that he’s proven, once again, that attachment parenting WORKS! Attachment parenting does not produce dependent, clingy children. It produces independent, self-confident children and Ava and Kelvin are living proof of that!

Posted: June 12th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 3

Today was Daniel’s graduation party…the motivating reason that we stayed up here for the last two weeks! His party was a lot of fun, but the memories we have of all this time is priceless. It will be nice to be home, but I’m going to miss getting to see my family so much.

I will probably not be posting at all for at least a few days. I have a lot of unpacking and catching up to do, and won’t be pressuring myself to do anything that doesn’t need to be done until I’m caught up. I’m sure it’s going to take my grandpa longer than a few days to recover from 10 hours in the car with my kids, though! Wish him luck!

Posted: June 7th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

Our time here in Wisconsin is almost over. Daniel’s graduation party is tomorrow and then we’ll be heading back to Topeka on Monday. I know the kids and I are all going to miss my grandparents a lot, but it will be good to be home with Chad (who we miss a lot right now).

While we’ve been here, it’s been so nice not trying to juggle 10 different things at once. At home, I’m always so stressed because there are so many things I need to attend to and I only have 2 hands and 24 hours in a day. While I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to think of ways to streamline things once I get home so it isn’t so hard to keep up with everything, but I haven’t come up with anything substantial. I think it’s more about the phase of life that I’m in than about what I’m doing right or wrong. I think anyone with two kids 18 months apart, trying to keep up with a house and a business would have just as hard a time as I am. Not to mention trying to carve out a little bit of time to take care of me…like taking showers and going to the gym (no diet pills for me, thank you very much!). I hope it will get easier in a year or so, but who knows.

Posted: June 6th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 3